In 1787, when the Founding Fathers had
hammered out the U.S. Constitution in Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, Benjamin
Franklin told an inquiring woman what the gathering had produced, "A
republic, madam, if you can keep it."

Last Updated:
Friday March 20, 2015 08:53 PM -0400

A Republic - NOT a Democracy!
"A simple democracy is the Devil's own government." Benjamin Rush

James Madison - 4th U.S.
President and primary author of the Constitution: "But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue
and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue
among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical
checks--no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form
of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the
people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence
in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So
that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but
in the people who are to choose them."

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is
not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its
jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the
members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate
provisions of any." --James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign
body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary
act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a
FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution." --James
Madison, Federalist No. 39, 1788

"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of
representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the
cure for which we are seeking." --James Madison, letter to William Hunter,
1790

"There is no good government but what is republican. That the only
valuable part of the British constitution is so; for the true idea of a
republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.' That,as a republic is the
best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of
society, or in other words, that form of government which is best contrived
to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of
republics." --John
Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

"[In a pure democracy], [a] common passion or interest
will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication
and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to
check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.
Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and
contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the
rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they
have been violent in their deaths." James Madison

"The fundamental principle of our
Constitution, which enjoins that the will of the majority shall prevail."
(Within the framework of the Constitution and Biblical Law, not mob rule.)George Washington (1732-1799) Father
of the Country, 1st President of the United States

"A democracy is nothing more than mob
rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the
other forty-nine." --Thomas Jefferson

“The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure
government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners
and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in
these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and
constitution.” --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query
XIX, 1782

See also: The
Electoral College was designed as a major ingredient in the
Republic, versus a democracy, to prevent "mob rule" in the states when
electing the President.

“That Book (the Bible) is
the rock on which our Republic rests.”
Andrew Jackson

"It has been observed, by an honorable gentleman, that a pure
democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government.
Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this.
The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never
possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny;
their figure, deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented
an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for
every enormity." ~ Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 14 - Author
James Madison
- ...The error which limits republican government to a
narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here
only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of
a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the
nature of the latter.

The true distinction between these forms was also adverted
to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and
exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer
it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be
confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

...Under the confusion of names, it has been an
easy task to transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy only;
and among others, the observation that it can never be established but among a
small number of people, living within a small compass of territory.

James Madison, Federalist No. 44 - "What is to be the consequence,
in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper
clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true
meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other
power vested in them...the success of the usurpation will depend on the
executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the
legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the
people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the
acts of the usurpers."

James Madison
Federalist No. 48 - 1788 (Separation of Powers) - An
ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which
should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers
of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of
magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without
being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government 19. Separation of Powers:
Federal and State The Federative Principle was the mechanism introduced
by the Founders that made possible a republic spread over a vast
continent. In addition, by dividing governmental power into co-equal,
independent responsibilities, each branch of government might serve as a
check on the other and thus prevent either one from undermining the
safety of the public liberty. "Our country is too large to have all its
affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a
distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the
circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the
details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same
circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents,
will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste." --Thomas
Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800. ME 10:167

...It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers, but by
their distribution that good government is effected. Were not this great
country already divided into States, that division must be made that
each might do for itself what concerns itself directly and what it can
so much better do than a distant authority. Every state again is divided
into counties, each to take care of what lies within its local bounds;
each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details . .
. It is by this partition of cares descending in gradation from general
to particular that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the
good and prosperity of all.

Quote from Thomas Jefferson:
"The several states composing the United States of America are not
united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general
government; but by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution
for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a
general government for special purposes [and] delegated to that
government certain definite powers and whensoever the general government
assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of
no force. To this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an
integral party, its co-states forming, as to itself, the other party.
The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or
final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that
would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution the measure of
its powers." (Click here for a
compilation of Jefferson quotes.)

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this
ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to
the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the
boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to
take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of
any definition." --Thomas
Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

-------

Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people."

"Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitution; and if we
wish to preserve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of
each and every State must be maintained. [God forbid that any man should
ever make the attempt [undermine State sovereignty]. Let that
Constitution ever be trodden under foot and destroyed, and there will
not be wisdom and patriotism enough left to make another that will work
half so well. Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the
Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it, inviolate, at
the same time maintaining the reserved rights and the sovereignty of
each State over its local and domestic institutions, against Federal
authority, or any outside interference." --Abraham Lincoln
- Sixteenth President of the United States

"On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to
the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit
manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be
squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the
probable one in which it was passed."--Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826) Third President of the United States

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is
to discover the meaning of those who made it."--James
Wilson (1742-1798) Founding Father, assisted in drafting the
Constitution, Supreme Court Justice

"The state governments, I think, will not be endangered by the
powers vested by this Constitution in the general government. While I
have attended in Congress, I have observed that the members were quite
as strenuous advocates for the rights of their respective states as for
those of the Union. I doubt not but this will continue to be the case,
and hence I infer that the general government will not have the
disposition to encroach upon the states. But still the people themselves
must be the chief support of liberty. While the great body of the
freeholders (voters) are acquainted with the duties which they owe to
their God, to themselves, and to men, remain free. But if ignorance and
depravity should prevail, they will inevitably lead to slavery and
ruin."--Samuel Huntington (1731-1796) Founding Father,
patriot and statesman

"Another not unimportant consideration is, that
the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be,
principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace,
negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal
operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations
beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between
the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the
states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary
course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the
people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the
state." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution,
1833

2. In
ascertaining the meaning of the phrase 'republican form of government,' the
debates of the constitutional conventions and the federalist papers are of great
importance, if not conclusive.

3. The
framers of the Constitution recognized the distinction between the republican
and democratic form of government, and carefully avoided the latter.

4. The
extent of territory of the states alone sufficed, in the judgment of the framers
of the Constitution, to condemn the establishment of a democratic form of
government.

5. The
form of state government perpetuated by the Constitution was the republican
form, with the three departments of government, in force in all the states at
the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

6. The
history of other nations does not furnish the definition of the phrase
'republican form of government,' as those words were used by the framers of the
Constitution. They distinguish the American from all other republics by the
introduction of the principle of representation.

7.
Initiative legislation is invalid because government by the people directly is
inconsistent with our form of government.

8. The
well-known practices of (a) adopting state Constitutions by popular vote, and of
(b) local legislation in 'town meetings,' furnish no precedent for the lodgment
of legislative power in the ballot box. [223 U.S. 118, 139] V.

'The Federal Constitution presupposes in each
state the maintenance of a republican form of government and the existence of
state legislatures, to wit: Representative assemblies having the power to make
the laws; and that in each state the powers of government will be divided into
three departments: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. One of these,
the legislature, is destroyed by the initiative.

Tyranny
Naturally Arises out of Democracy By
Michael
Peroutka - Does it drive you crazy when you hear politicians and
talking heads refer to
America as a “democracy”? If it does, I sympathize with you. And so
do the founders. Here’s what
James Madison, our fourth President and the man they call the “Father
of the Constitution,” had to say about democracies: "Democracies
have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been
found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and
have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent
in their deaths…"
So, despite what you have repeatedly heard, the purpose and the
premise of the Constitution of these united States is the establishment
of a Christian Republic under God,
NOT a democracy. Now there are many evil persons (and many of their
ignorant followers) who want us to be a
democracy.
They would prefer that the whims and fancies of the majority,
manipulated by the media and by elitist power brokers, become the law of
the land. Under such a system, neither our lives nor our private
possessions are safe. But, in a
Christian Republic governed by a Constitution which is rooted in
Biblical law, all life and property are safe.
Why? Well in a Christian Republic law rules – not the majority. Now
do you see why the politicians and the talking heads keep calling us a “democracy“?
They want you to believe that we are one. And that should drive you
crazy.

The Tyranny
of the Minority by A.W.R.
Hawkins - When the Founding Fathers created this nation, they
designated it a republic rather than a democracy. They did so because a
republic is fixed and tends toward stability over time, whereas a
democracy, which is always in flux, is prone to violent dissolution at
any moment. In fact, many of them referred to democracy as “mob
rule,” and wanted to avoid it like the plague for fear that it could
provide a faction the opportunity to access to the levers of political
power and change the course of the nation for the worse in a relatively
short period of time.
Although we have all but abolished the
Constitution the Founders left us and moved closer to a democracy with
each passing generation, we have still managed to remain a republic
foundationally. Yet somewhere along the way, between 1776 and now, we
opened the door to a rabid political correctness that has actually
nurtured the very faction-like atmosphere which tends to undo a
republic. But it's not the kind of faction our Founders feared: not one
where a majority of voters unite for a cause and force their will upon
the citizenry as a whole. Instead, it's a perverted use of the court
system and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that
allow a person to claim that he's been offended and then to levy the
charge against those who gave offense in order to control their actions.
In other words, we're not dealing with the tyranny of the majority, but
the tyranny of the minority.
We have lost nativity scenes in cities
across America because one citizen of one city doesn't like Christmas.
We have lost freedom of religious expression in our public school system
because a student here or there is bothered when people pray. We have
lost crosses on many of our war memorials because atheists want to
shield their children from religious exposure. And we are poised to lose
even more freedoms if we don't stop this scourge before it sweeps across
our land and our intellectual landscape completely.

Democracy Versus Liberty By Walter E. Williams -
Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy.
Webster defines a democracy as 'government by the people; especially:
rule of the majority.' In a democracy, the majority rules either
directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the
law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not
represent reason. They represent force. The restraint is upon the
individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a
republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and
permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by
government. To highlight the offensiveness to liberty that democracy and
majority rule is, just ask yourself how many decisions in your life
would you like to be made democratically. How about what car you drive,
where you live, whom you marry, whether you have turkey or ham for
Thanksgiving dinner? If those decisions were made through a democratic
process, the average person would see it as tyranny and not personal
liberty. Is it no less tyranny for the democratic process to determine
whether you purchase health insurance or set aside money for retirement?
Both for ourselves and our fellow man around the globe, we should be
advocating liberty, not the democracy that we've become -- where a
roguish Congress can do anything simply by mustering a majority vote.

James Madison, Federalist No. 55, 1788 - "As there
is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of
circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human
nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.
Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a
higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been
drawn by the political jealousy of some among us, faithful likenesses of
the human character, the inference would be that there is not sufficient
virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the
chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one
another."

ObamaCare, democracy, and the Republic By
John Hayward
- One of the most common category errors in political discourse is
referring to the United States of America as a “democracy.” It is not a
democracy, and it never has been. The Founding Fathers would be
absolutely horrified to learn their descendants would routinely use the
term. Democracy is mob rule. The Founders opposed it as strongly as
they opposed monarchy. The government they created was designed to
restrain both the despotic control of a ruling elite, and the transitory
passions of the crowd. How often have you heard it said that we must
preserve the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority?
This idea is profoundly hostile to “democracy,” in which the majority
always gets its way, subject to whatever absolute limits might be placed
on the power of the State. If you are a person of middle age, you may
have noticed there is much less talk about protecting the rights of the
minority these days, or of placing absolute limits on the power of the
State. Dissent ceased to be the highest expression of patriotism roughly
five years ago.
The old battle between “democracy” and the Republic flared up on
the set of a talk show yesterday, in the context of ObamaCare and the
movement to defund it, as reported by
Politico: Rev. Al Sharpton argued with Rep. Doug Collins over
Republican efforts to defund Obamacare in a government funding bill,
asking him if that’s consistent with democracy and prompting Collins to
declare America’s not a democracy, but a republic.
...Sharpton seized on the comment, saying he was eager to share
that news with Collins’s constituents. “I really hope the people in the
9th District know in the next election they should not vote thinking
this is a democracy. That Doug Collins says this is not a democracy.
I’ll even send you the clip so you can play it in your next campaign,”
Sharpton said.
...So yes, for the record, Sharpton is absolutely wrong, Collins is
absolutely correct, and if you think otherwise, you should return any
high-school or college diplomas in your possession and consider suing
the schools you got them from for malpractice. The people of the 9th
District should be insulted that Al Sharpton thinks they are as ignorant
as he is.
But let’s take this opportunity to consider why the difference
between a democracy and a republic is important, beginning with the
observation that even if Sharpton was correct, it wouldn’t help the
argument he was trying to make. For starters, if America really was a
“democracy,” ObamaCare would be dead and buried by now. The people hate
it; they have always hated it; they hate it more as they learn more
about it; a strong majority has always disapproved of it. Democracy is
essentially government by referendum, and if the American people were
given a chance to directly vote on the survival of ObamaCare, it would
not have survived beyond 2011. ObamaCare exists entirely because America
is a republic.
The Democrats used a temporary lock on both houses of Congress,
plus the White House, to shove the Affordable Care Act onto the books.
Even at that, it was necessary to hold a black-market bazaar of backroom
deals and special carve-outs to buy the votes needed for passage. None
of that would have worked if America was a democracy. There’s no way the
Democrats could have purchased enough popular support to muscle it
through. That’s not an argument in favor of democracy, incidentally.
Direct popular government is quite capable of making awful mistakes. It
is more prone to such mistakes than a republic, on balance.
...These parts of Sharpton’s outburst are complete non sequiturs.
He’s not really complaining about offenses against “democracy” – he’s
whining about political initiatives he personally dislikes. He is also
willfully misrepresenting the current legislative situation, which
should come as no surprise. The Republicans are not the ones threatening
to shut down the government; Barack Obama and the Democrats are. The
choice before them is funding the entire government, except for the
badly broken and unworkable program known as the Affordable Care Act, or
shutting down the government to defend the ACA. It is unsurprising that
every liberal in the nation will lie through his teeth about the nature
of the situation, since they’ve put a lot of effort into making the
American public frightened of “government shutdowns” and angry at those
who precipitate them. ...if Mitt Romney had won the 2012 election and
postponed the employer mandate of ObamaCare, precisely the way Barack
Obama has done, the Left would be howling with rage, and Democrats in
Congress would probably be talking about impeaching him.
...America was created as a republic to protect the rights of the
minority, encourage meaningful dissent (as opposed to rhetorical
dissent, which amounts to bolting a suggestion box to the office door of
a tyrant) and de-centralize power. The Left was very clever about
turning the strengths of the Republic against it, beginning with the
crucial evisceration of the Constitution: removing the restraints upon
government, making the states helplessly subordinate to an all-powerful
federal system, and sheltering power in the hidden recesses of the
bureaucracy, where voters and their representatives would never be able
to retrieve it. The states were actually supposed to have direct
influence upon federal legislation – that was the original purpose of
the Senate, corrupted by the switch to direct election of Senators with
the Seventeenth Amendment, early in the Twentieth Century. ObamaCare
was, perhaps, the ultimate corruption of republican virtue. It might
prove to be the final corruption of the Republic. Its architects and
apologists could at least do the Republic the courtesy of calling her by
her proper name while they dump the last shovels full of dirt on her
coffin.